


Second Chances

by Tamoline



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 10:37:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamoline/pseuds/Tamoline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate wakes up after a nightmare in a very different place to where she went to sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for early season 4 of Stargate Atlantis
> 
> Written for lunabee34 's Fanwork Gateverse Extravaganza
> 
> Prompt by havocthecat - Elizabeth/Kate: Reincarnation

I'm dreaming.

I'm dreaming that I'm standing on one of Atlantis' balconies, wavering on the edge.

I fall.

And, somehow, I know that this is something I will *not* be waking from.

But I do.

Too-bright light pierces my head as I find myself looking up at a ceiling.

Two heads - or is that three? - are silhouetted against the glare, making any other identification impossible.

Snatches of words.

"We've got brain activity. We've done it!" an exultant female voice declares, before spiking into indecipherable, babbling pain.

"...over-stimulation," a male voice modulates down into merely being painful. "We've got to put her under."

A sudden coldness in my left arm.

Spreading.

Spreading.

Spreading.

Dragging me down into frigid, blessedly black, depths.

Nothing.

 

I slowly swim back into consciousness.

Everything is dull and faded, my thoughts slow as treacle.

For a moment, for the first moment, I forget and start to reach over.

But no one is there.

Of course, no one is there.

And even through this, even through the cotton wool that seems to be filling my head, I can tell something is horribly wrong.

It *looks* like a room in Atlantis, albeit not one in the medical wing.

But the colours are all wrong - strange patterns in blues and reds and purples that I've never seen before.

The door opens, and a man I don't recognise walks through. 

He's young - can't be more than early twenties - and seems almost Athosian in his looks and clothes, but there's something wrong...

It takes me a long minute to try and figure out why I think that, whilst he checks me over with a casual professionalism that doesn't tally with his age.

His clothes. They're machine-made.

"Good morning," he says, ducking his head in such a fashion that it might meet mine if I were sitting up.

"Good morning," I whisper back. I suffer another moment of dislocation, as the voice that emerges from my throat does not sound quite like my own; flatter and somewhat off pitch. 

"Good morning," I try again, but, still, it sounds wrong.

I know I should be panicking, but the dull emptiness within me eats the sensation whole.

Drugged, I think.

Oh, I think. That could be the cause of these problems.

And with that, the feeling that I should be afraid starts to fade.

"What's wrong?" the man asks.

"I'm drugged," slips from out of my mouth without my conscious awareness.

"Yes," he says. "It's a problem... You've undergone a major medical procedure, and I need to run you through a checklist of items, just to make sure there aren't any complications."

Following his words distract me so much that I don't notice the arrival of another person. She's just leaning against the wall the next time I glance over, a look of shadowed concern on her face.

She's older than the man, though still not old - mid-thirties, maybe? - and she doesn't look at all familiar.

And yet...

And yet...

I feel like I *should* know her.

"What's your name?" the man asks.

There's something wrong. 

There's a standard protocol to follow in these situations.

But the only thing I can remember through the wool is - don't answer. 

Don't co-operate.

So I seal my mouth shut, and just look at him.

"Are you having problems remembering that?" he asks, looking concerned.

"Too drugged to think," I say, allowing my voice to slur a bit more than necessary.

He frowns. "Okay. Let me know when you start feeling too sensitive."

He doesn't appear to do anything, but the room starts coming into clearer and clearer focus, the background noises louder and sharper. I become aware of a *thrum* almost like a heartbeat, rippling straight through the bed.

And then it starts becoming too much, and I instinctively bury my head beneath my arms.

"There?" I hear him ask, and I nod.

My thoughts seem sharper now, though there's still a thin fog there coming between me and the outside world.

But it's enough.

So, after a moment, I cautiously unwrap my head and blink at the surroundings.

"Is that better?" he asks, cocking his head and examining me with what seems to be a professional eye. He has a sobriety to his manner that belies his years - he acts more like a doctor in his middle years than one who must have only just graduated.

"Yes, thank you."

"Now, can you remember what your name is?"

There *is* a protocol. I helped design it.

"Who are you?" I counter. "Where is this?"

"Brannon, resuscitation expert. As to where this is... we were hoping to cover that together with another rescuee. If you both prove to be sufficiently fit and healthy."

I close my eyes and think for a moment. 

Wherever I am, I'm clearly at the mercy of these people.

And surely my identity alone is safe to give.

I open my eyes and focus on Brannon. "My name is Kate Heightmeyer," I say and give him a small smile. "Is that the answer you were looking for?"

"Excellent," he says, returning the smile. "And what is the last thing you can remember?"

"I went to sleep in my room." It's a safe enough answer. If he doesn't already know I'm from Atlantis, there's no need to give him a freebie.

"Hmm. And can you remember what date this was?" he asks. "Earth date will do fine," he adds.

I give him a hard stare. "Why? What is the date *now*?"

His gaze slides off me uncomfortably. "That's another one of those things that we'd prefer to handle with your compatriot."

I sigh, and try to get a hold of myself. 

So far, I've been offered no harm by these people, and they haven't asked anything of any real value.

I'm normally so much *better* than this.

But I'm feeling distinctly off-kilter, I'm in a strange place and there's a feeling like a cold fist in my stomach, telling me that the worst is yet to come.

"I'm sorry. When I went to bed, it was the 19th October 2007. Or possibly the 20th, given the time differential."

Brannon looks blank for a moment, and I hear a slight hum coming from him. "Good," he says. "That matches our records. Any obvious holes in your memory?"

I shake my head, then turn my attention to the so far silent woman in the room. "If you wouldn't mind me asking, who are you?" I ask her.

Brannon hums to himself, like I've somehow checked off another box, but the woman smiles brilliantly, her face suddenly animating. "You- Call me Tia. Pretty much everyone does. I help administrate things around here."

There's still that nagging feeling that I *know* her, but it isn't any closer to becoming clear.

"Well, I'm honoured that you've come to check on me personally."

Tia looks a little self-conscious. "You're one of my icons. I never-"

"Enough," Brannon interrupts. "You can talk about that later. At the moment, I'd like to run some physical tests, to see how well you're doing on that side of things."

This goes less well. Notably less well. I feel like a new-born colt, having problems with basic coordination. I don't even try to get up to walk. It feels like the problem goes well beyond any effects of the drug, but Brannon doesn't appear concerned, just seeming to check off more of those mental boxes.

"Obviously, you're going to need some form of physical therapy," he says after concluding the tests. "We'll go through the available options later. Now, do you feel up to discussing your broader situation here, or would you like to rest for a bit first?"

"Now," I tell him firmly. I want to-. No, I *need* to know what's going on here. Not to mention who my 'compatriot' is.

Who is here with me?

He fetches a wheelchair, helps me into it and then wheels me into a larger room with several doors leading off it. There's an empty wheelchair in one corner, which Brannon then wheels into another room, the door closing behind him.

The other chair is for the person I'm supposed to know, I would imagine.

I balance the idea of staying where I am with the effort of trying to indulge my curiosity. Before I can come to a decision, another door opens and a girl bounces in. She has nut brown hair and pale, almost translucent skin. She looks like she's maybe around the same age as Brannon, but acts so very much younger that it takes me a second to realise that fact.

She stops as soon as she sees me, regarding me with an unalloyed delight.

"Oh, great!" she says. "You're up. Well, not up, but not in bed. Conscious, definitely." She looks blankly at me for a moment - this time with no hum - before returning to life. "And no tachyonic signature! Excellent work, if I do say so myself."

She doesn't appear to need or want my input, so I just let her talk, trying to parse her words as best I can.

She certainly seems to be currently my best chance to learn what's going on here.

The door Brannon disappeared into reopens. I turn around on instinct, and...

And...

And...

"Elizabeth," I whisper, dry-mouthed.

She seems equally transfixed. "Kate?" she says.

Dimly, in the background, I can hear the girl say, almost exultantly, "And clearly memory and facial recognition are both working. Take that, iteration 3!"

But it doesn't matter.

Because my brain is starting to work again.

And this is all starting to make a horrid kind of sense.

"Replicators," I say. "You were taken by replicators, Elizabeth. Which means that all of this..."

Elizabeth blinks, a nervous tic, then her eyes narrow in calculation.

"Replicators?!" the so far unnamed girl says in a highly offended tone of voice. "As if they could have accomplished this!"

"Ida," Brannon chides a little wearily. "They haven't had the situation explained to them yet."

"So what *is* going on here, since you've been remarkably reticent until this point?" Elizabeth's voice cuts through the sound of Ida's protests.

Brannon's gaze flickers towards Tia, then back towards us.

Interesting.

"The basics are quite simple," he says. "We can now both create essentially human bodies, and upload and download personalities."

"So we're, what, copies of the original Dr Weir and Dr Heightmeyer?" Elizabeth asks, and I have to give her credit for sounding almost level.

Though I guess it might not be the strangest thing we've had to handle.

"That's one way to think about it. We tend to prefer thinking of it as a continuance of your existence."

"Where are we?" I ask.

Brannon hesitates, and again looks towards Tia.

"Atlantis," he says.

"If this is Atlantis, where is our crew?" Elizabeth asks. "I don't think you can expect us to believe that they wouldn't be here waiting for us if that were the case."

This time it's Tia who speaks. "I'm sorry, Dr Weir, but it's been some centuries since you were both alive."

My gaze locks with Elizabeth's again, but this time in anguish.

Centuries?

Everyone we ever knew is dead, gone.

Everyone except each other.

I want to hold her, be held by her, *so* badly right now.

But my body's still too weak to move over there. 

Besides, I'm not sure that I could let down my shields that much around strangers, and I know she wouldn't want that either.

The moment passes, and Elizabeth turns back towards them.

"You have proof about this, of course?" she asks steadily.

"Whatever you will accept," Tia says.

"Though anything we can give you could be faked," points out Ida.

"That's not helping," Brannon says.

"Really, though, if we were that unprincipled," Ida continues, "It would have been far easier to hack your minds. And, for that matter, if I'd been allowed a pass through them, I'd be far happier about their overall..." she trails off as Tia gives her an absolutely frigid glare.

"Thank you for the reassurance," Elizabeth says dryly.

"The first and most important question, though," Brannon says, "Is whether you wish to remain active."

Tia looks like she wants to say something, but silences herself.

Elizabeth looks at me, and I know we're both thinking the same thing.

"By active, if you mean alive..." she says.

"That's probably the easiest way for you to think about it at the moment."

"Then yes," she finishes. "Certainly for the moment."

"You mentioned something about physical therapy, Brannon," I say.

He nods. "Yes. Your current problems are caused by the fact that there some physiological mismatches between your current and original bodies. Mostly, these are caused by the various upgrades that are either standard or necessary."

"Upgrades?" Elizabeth asks, raising an eyebrow.

"The most necessary is a fully enhanced Ancient gene - necessary for the download to take place. Other than that, we didn't have access to any samples from your original bodies, and the standard human body we construct here has various evolutionary dead ends removed."

"How comforting," Elizabeth notes. "Can we get the details of these differences?"

"Of course. As regards physical therapy, the easiest way would be to add the relevant neural pathways."

"No," both I and Elizabeth say, then add, "Thank you."

He nods. "Then there is putting you into a learning simulation, designed to get you to learn as efficiently as possible. Failing that, I can always look up how to do it the way that would have been standard in your time."

Despite the less than encouraging way in which he puts that, both of us go for the latter course.

We're just about to start the first set of exercises, Ida watching with fascination - or at least watching *something* with fascination - and Tia seemingly content to fade into the background, when the doorway Ida came through opens.

Standing in the entranceway is a Wraith Queen, angled and notched face tilted in a parody of curiosity.

For a moment, I can't breathe.

Is this the joke? I think crazily.

She steps into the room, focussed on one thing - Elizabeth.

Is this the punch line?

Time seems to stretch, slow down like taffy.

Was all this just to get us to put our guard down?

She raises her hands and then tilts them away from Elizabeth, exposing her wrists.

"So," she says, the wraith accent undercutting the softness of her tone. "This is the great Elizabeth Weir." She glances around her. "You did it then." She looks back to Elizabeth. "I'm... honoured to meet you."

Elizabeth somehow contrives to look like she's staring down at the queen, even as the wraith towers above the chair. "What do you want?" she says levelly.

She's met by a susurrus of laughter. "I am the queen of the Atlantean Hive. Should I not be concerned when such a *renowned* killer of wraith is brought among us?"

Elizabeth looks around and, by doing so, manages to break the spell on me so I can do the same. 

Tia and Brannon look more annoyed than afraid.

Ida is still staring off into space.

"The Atlantean Hive?" Elizabeth asks.

Brannon is the one to answer. "The war with the wraith is long over. Now, they are but another of the Pegasian peoples, welcomed like any other."

"They took the cure?"

The queen shrugs. "Many did. Even amongst us, it is an... adequate palliative. But we also have our accommodation with the humans of Atlantis."

"What sort of accommodation?" Elizabeth asks with a subtle fascinated horror that probably only I notice, that I share.

"We take those who come to us willingly. After all, with the human rebirth, they only lose a few hours. And we have proven our worth amongst this expedition," she says proudly. "Many times."

Elizabeth gives an almost imperceptible shiver. "I see," she says.

It seems almost unbelievable, even given the technology that these people have.

How could anyone let themselves be fed on?

But neither Tia nor Brannon give the slightest impression that the queen is lying.

"We would have told you about the hive later," Brannon says apologetically. "But we wanted you to get acclimated first."

The queen laughs again, this time with an edge of mockery to it. "Unless, of course, they stumbled across one of my people before your careful explanation. Because *nothing* that inconvenient has ever happened before."

"That was your reason for barging in?" Brannon says.

"Well, and I wanted to see the fearsome Dr Weir with my own eyes," she says, locking her gaze with that of Elizabeth. "There's nothing quite like it."

"Are we going to be expected to feed ourselves to the Wraith?" Elizabeth asks, not breaking eye contact with the queen.

"Not unless you willingly consent to it," the queen says, sounding almost offended. "We are *not* the barbarians you encountered in your time."

"Hmmm..." Elizabeth says, contemplatively.

"Can I trust that you will not kill any of my people you encounter?" the queen asks.

A surprised laugh forces its way out of Elizabeth's throat. "You can at that," she says wryly.

I can't help wondering what tales they tell of her, my Elizabeth?

Maybe, if this isn't some kind of trap, I might be able to find out.

"In which case," the queen says. "I will take my leave. Brannon," she nods to him, "And a pleasure as always, dear Ida," who doesn't respond. Tia, she ignores as though she isn't there.

And with that, she sweeps out of the room, as suddenly as she entered.

And I can breathe again. 

I hadn't quite been aware of how tightly I had been holding it.

"Do you have any other little secrets that you haven't thought to trouble us with just yet?" Elizabeth asks.

Tia and Brannon exchange a look. "*Everyone* in the city has their own secrets, but there are only a few you need to know," Tia says. "The first one is that at some point the city became sentient, or fully so, if she wasn't before. She is her own person, and has a say in what happens here. The second is that about a century after peace came to the Pegasus galaxy, the city decided to set off on its own voyage of discovery. Echoing that of your own expedition," she says, favouring us with a smile. "We've spent a couple of centuries exploring the Andromeda galaxy, and we're currently in intergalactic space. The hive and every human aboard volunteered for the trip, and most are still active."

The air escapes from my lungs.

*That* I had not expected.

The city - alive?

And us on another trip, a longer one this time?

Brannon looks at both of us. "I think that's enough excitement for today. We can continue the exercises tomorrow."

He walks over to grab the handles to Elizabeth's wheelchair when I ask, "Elizabeth, would you mind if I spent the night with you?"

Her head jerks around to look at me.

Before, we never acknowledged what was between us.

Actions seemed to suffice.

Words would have just complicated things.

And then, and then she was taken from me, and I had not a single word to hold onto.

And now, and now we are hundreds of years and millions of light-years from home.

And I just want someone - her - to anchor me tonight.

Before the morrow, and the reality of all this starts to set in.

"Please?" I add.

She gives me a slow nod. "Okay," she says. "Sure."

Brannon looks between us, then wheels us both into Elizabeth's room.

The bed may be a little small, but it's not as though we're going to be moving anywhere tonight.

"Goodnight," Brannon says, and his words are echoed by Tia and Ida. "If you need anything, just call," he adds. The door closes behind him and the lights dim to almost nothing.

There's a silence that lies between the two of us on the bed.

Finally, Elizabeth says, "I was taken by the replicators?"

I nod, unable to say a word lest I acknowledge it all over again.

"The last thing I remember is... The replicator attack on the city," she says. "Then an explosion, and-" she shrugs.

"It's probably for the best," I say, turning around to face her, managing to shift my arm around until my hand covers hers.

"What happened to you?" she asks, her eyes large in the gloom.

"I don't know," I say honestly. "The last thing I remember is going to sleep."

There was the nightmare, of course, but I can't be sure that isn't just a fabrication of my mind.

"It's probably for the best," she echoes with a half-smile.

The silence comes again, but this time it's a little more comfortable.

"You know," I say eventually, "If you ever need to- to let *anything* out, I'm here. Not as Dr Heightmeyer. Just as Kate."

She takes a deep breath, and lets it out shakily. "Not yet. Not just yet. But thanks. And the same goes for you of course."

"Don't worry," I tell her sardonically. "I would *never* mistake you for Dr Heightmeyer."

"Wretch," she says, then laughs. It might be a little more broken than usual, not nearly as bright, but it's a lot more honest. "You're lucky that I don't think I could lift up a pillow right now."

"Promises, promises," I tell her.

"Yes," she says, suddenly more serious and loosely grips my hand. "Promises." 

Somehow, for tonight, it's enough.

And tomorrow, tomorrow will bring new challenges.

Elizabeth will doubtless get distracted by a city's worth of colourful characters, of different ways and different societies. And that's even before we reach our destination, with brand new opportunities for discovering new things, new peoples and forging new links.

And me? 

I'm going have more than enough to keep me occupied. A hive mind to investigate, not to mention the ways that technology and changing mores have altered the human psyche.

Tomorrow is a brand new day, a second chance.

And, best of all?

It's one I will get to spend with Elizabeth.


End file.
